A Garment A Week – Week 9 – 04/03/16

A stretch knit light wrap cardi.
Inspiration taken from a pic I found on pinterest, then I’ve added my own tweaks. Patterned from a basic block pattern that I’ve made to fit me 🙂  This is making pattern drafting for myself sooo much easier and faster.

The cardi has ties sewn into the side seams, a wide binding around the neck, gathers on front at the shoulder and elastic on the lower arm seams to keep the lower sleeve gathered up nicely.

It can also be worn a few different ways.  Draped and tied in the front, wrapped fronts and tied in front or open front and tied in back.

Unfortunately I don’t have the right machines for sewing knits properly. Ideally I would have liked to coverseam the sleeve hems and then use a tight mini overlock on the hem and tie edges. This would have given the cardi a bit more drape and taken away the possibility of popping the stitches from the straight sewer, as these stitches won’t flex and stretch with the fabric.

I think if I were to remake this style I would sew a longer tie in place on the back, so it goes the whole way around the body, as with the tie in the side seams it tends to pull the back and sides towards the front. The look of the style means this doesn’t make too much difference but I think the overall look would be better. I think I would also stitch the elastic or mobilon into the sleeves while they’re flat and maybe on both sides of the sleeve. I think this would give the gathers more structure and look a bit tidier, like they should be there.

Overall really comfy and really versatile.